Automatic License Plate Scanners

The technology available to
repossession services is
finally entering the 21st century. Automatic license plate scanners are
now available from several different vendors. What is an automatic
license plate scanner and how is this new technology going to make your
repossession service more money?

Most people are unaware that the police have used
automatic license plate scanners for years. The technology is almost 10
years old and it has been perfected. The price for automatic license
plate scanners has come way down and will continue to fall as
competition in the industry is increasing.

So what is an automatic license plate scanner? In the
law enforcement version the police car is equipped with several cameras
that are hooked up to a computer that is running optical character
recognition software. In layman's terms the computer is programmed to
recognize license plates and read them as well. The computer goes
through the internet and checks the states BMV computers. The computer
notifies the police office if a car has an expired license plate, if the
owner of a vehicle has a suspended drivers license, or if the owner of
the car has a warrant for their arrest. Sure makes the police
department's job much easier.

These automatic license plate readers can read license
plates from up to 500 feet away! At least that's what the manufacturers
of automatic license plate scanners are claiming. Most of the automatic
license plate scanners out there are really only effective at reading
license plates up to 300 feet. That is still quite an impressive (almost
scary) distance.

The repossession service version of the automatic
license plate scanner works as follows. The automatic license plate
scanner is hooked up to a tow truck. As the truck drives through the
hood at night, the truck is making note of every license plate that it
drives by and reads. The computer stores the license plate number, the
date, time, and GPS coordinates for every vehicle that your repossession
truck drives by. You can manually enter license plate information into
the computer's hot sheet. If you happen to drive by one of the license
plates on your trucks hot sheet, the computer will notify you to
repossess the black Lexus you just passed by and the license plate that
is on it.

You can also search the data your repossession trucks
have stored by entering a license plate from a new repossession order.
If your trucks have seen the plate you will get a printout showing the
date, time, and GPS coordinates for every time your repossession truck
has seen that plate.

You will have to get access to your states BMV records
in order to convert the vehicle's
VIN number to a license plate.
California and Virginia repossessors are going to be left out in the
cold since those two state's BMV's will not release license plate data.

This is a giant step forward in repossession
technology. In ten years we will look back and wonder how we ever found
cars to repossess without it. The price for automatic license plate
scanners has started to come down, and should continue to fall as more
manufactures enter the marketplace.

JayCarter says: A good skip tracer will always find a new way to
find their collateral. This technology is amazing. Now we just have
to mount it into a satellite with a big zoom lens and we will know
where every car is at, at all times.